Eurosport Tuning at its Finest

Main Menu

UPDATE2_AVANT Resto

In this week’s update we tackle a transmission problem with the wagon. The problem started while trying out the Tiptronic’s sport mode. (Not really sure what that is) However beside the subpar performance we noticed that the wagon was not shifting when it should. No, we are not making this up, the wagon would hold gears even longer than expected with the tip. (We probably should not call it “The Tip”) Now, for those of you not familiar with the way a tiptronic works, here is a brief explanation. The car is an automatic, with the ability to manually cycle through gears. In theory it works, however the slush box between the wheels and the engine is anything but performance. For example while changing gears its rumored each Tip gets a small old gnome, and the gnome has to manually change the large heavy gears by lifting them over his little head. That’s about the only manual thing about the slush box, but hey, it does drive smooth, even if you can read a book in the time it takes to shift. Now back to our problem, it was one of those oh shit moments, as in we don’t really want to replace a tranny. However the fix was so simple it was comical. The problem was the Tiptronic switch itself. The switch works with two magnets that complete a circuit when engaged, however they can become dislodged and stuck to things. (Because that’s what magnets do) This causes the tiptronic to receive a series of bad codes, forcing it into limp mode. The fix to this, was simply to reset the magnets in a way that prevented them from becoming stuck again. We needed few tools, really only to pry things off, because everything clips into place. First we pulled the trim, being careful not to break it, then we pulled the knob out on the shifter and pulled up. The surround slides down and we got the shifter off. (It took some force, but be careful not to break it) Then we pulled the circuit board and reset the magnets. They are the small silver bars in the pictures below. All in all there are two that need to be checked, on small on top and another longer one on the side. Set these and reassemble everything and you should be good to go. We were. It’s also worth noting the car will throw a code for this problem, which will read short to ground. Now we just have to find a faster gnome. Happy wrenching!